Kenya: Al-Shabaab Gunmen Single Out Christians and Kill 147 Students

According to World Watch Monitor, AlShabaab gunmen stormed a college in northeastern Kenya at dawn Thursday on 2 April .

After the gunmen killed the guards on duty, they reportedly began shooting indiscriminately, before taking hostage hundreds of students from their dormitories.
During the attack, the Kenyan security forces got involved in an attempt to neutralise the situation, and an Al-Shabaab military operations spokesperson, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, according to Reuters, stated that Christian and Muslim hostages had been separated and the Muslim students had been freed.

“All I could hear were footsteps and gunshots. Nobody was screaming because they thought this would lead the gunmen to know where they are,” a student, Collins Wetangula, told The Associated Press.

He added, “The gunmen were saying, ‘Sisi ni al-Shabab,’” Swahili for “We are Al-Shabaab.” He heard the attackers arrive at his dormitory, open the doors and ask if the people who had hidden inside were Muslims or Christians. “If you were a Christian, you were shot on the spot,” he said. “With each blast of the gun, I thought I was going to die.” Most of the victims are believed to be Christians.

A survivor was found two days after the attack. Cynthia Cheroitich, 19, said she had hid in a wardrobe and covered herself with clothes, refusing to emerge even when some of her classmates came out of hiding when demanded by the gunmen. “I was just praying to my God,” Cheroitich, a Christian, said of her ordeal.